by Mary Martel
"I thought you were someone come to kill me when I heard the door open up behind me and I couldn't see who was walking through it," I admitted.
"And yet you're still watching the movie," he muttered sarcastically. "That's nuts."
He was right, of course. It was also stupid, but I liked the thrill watching scary movies gave me. I shrugged and squeezed his hand.
He turned his head to the side and buried his face in my hair.
"Mmm..." he mumbled. "You smell nice."
I giggled, I couldn't help it. They both liked Dash’s scent.
Julian stayed awake with me through the rest of the movie.
We left Damien asleep under a pile of warm blankets and surrounded by fairy lights while Julian drove me home. For some reason he drove Damien's SUV, and I didn't ask why. Maybe they shared a vehicle? It didn't matter so I didn't ask. The ride was quiet, but not awkward, and he held my hand on his knee the whole way.
He walked me to the door, kissed me on the forehead, and waited outside for me to get inside and lock the door. Only then did he head back to the SUV.
Dash had left the lights on in the mud room and the dining room for me, but I didn't get the chance to tell him thank you because he was asleep in his bed. I know because I checked after I turned out the lights and headed up to my room.
His door was open wide and Binx was in the doorway, waiting for me. I scratched his little head and told him I'd be back. Then I went to my room and changed into sleep shorts and a tank top. I grabbed a pillow off of my bed and went back to Dash's room.
To my shock, Binx had listened to me and was waiting where I'd left him in the doorway.
Uninvited, I entered Dash's room and tiptoed over to the side of his bed he wasn't sleeping on. Very carefully, so as not to wake him, I pulled the covers aside and very carefully placed my pillow up against the headboard.
Dash didn't wake up when I got into the bed with him, but he did mumble something incoherently in his sleep, then rolled over to his side and wrapped his arm around my middle.
I didn't know if my being in there was a good idea or not, but I did know I wasn't ready to sleep alone when there was an unknown entity out there trying to get to me in my sleep.
I was out almost as soon as my head hit the pillow, and if I dreamed I didn't remember it.
And, just in case you were wondering, Dash acted like it was business as usual when he woke up beside me in the morning.
Chapter Eighteen
I sat the book down beside me on the wicker loveseat and rubbed my fingers against my poor, tired eyes. I had had a fascinating day watching Dash read tarot cards for several different ladies. It had been a long, but good, day and now I was exhausted.
But, no matter how hard I had tried, sleep had refused to come to me. I tossed, and I turned, and when laying there counting sheep hadn't worked for me, I'd finally decided to say to hell with it and gave up on trying.
I'd picked a book at random off of the shelf and settled down to read on the loveseat with my blanket from the bed, turning it into a cozy nest. I spent the last hour reading about herbs found in America, how to properly store them, and their many uses. The first fifteen pages or so had been very interesting. I'd lost interest not long after and had mostly been skimming ever since. Plants weren't really my thing, I had never tried to grow anything before, and didn't think I would be able to keep something alive and hoped I would never have to try. I liked learning about all the different uses each plant had, but they kind of bled into each other after a while, and they all sort of looked the same to me. I thought Julian would have been better off with the book on his shelf than mine, though, because he was really good with plants.
I should have gotten up off my butt and went to the shelf and picked out a new book, but the loveseat and nest I had made for myself was outrageously comfortable and I didn't feel much like moving.
Still not ready for sleep, I dropped my hand to my lap and looked out the window. I reached up with my other hand and pressed my palm against the cool glass.
The front yard, what little there was of it, was dark. The trees on the other side of the driveway slash road were black. The sky was lit up with stars and still it didn't brighten up the trees. It was dark, and, in its own way, beautiful. I still would rather not go outside and wander through the trees, no matter how beautiful it was. The woods were an entirely different story when the moon was full and shining brightly overhead. It made things a whole lot less frightening. The one and only time I had ventured into the woods alone had been on a night where the moon had been full of light and energy and had guided my way.
I was a city girl at heart, but I was beginning to appreciate the quiet of living out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by the wilderness. Once, the quiet had bothered me, and even made it hard for me to sleep. I was used to hearing cars drive by, sirens going off, or people arguing in the next apartment over. Quiet, I was not used to. Even staying at Mr. Cole's house hadn't prepared me for the quiet of Dash's cottage. It was peaceful out here and I was really enjoying the quiet for once in my life.
Quiet was good. So was peaceful.
I jumped and pulled back from the window when a bunch of small objects came flying at me out of the dark. The book slid off the cushion and hit the floor with a loud thump as a bunch of small rocks rained against the window on the outside like hail.
"What the?" I muttered in a shaky voice.
A figure darted out of the shadows and moved into the soft light that Dash started leaving on on the front stoop after what happened with Chucky out there. He did it for my benefit, I knew. Tyson stepped into the glow, and he looked directly up and into my bedroom window. He waved his arms around wildly above his head and I grinned down at him. I didn't know if he could see my grin from all the way down there or if it was wasted on him.
He was a crazy person. Who threw rocks at someone’s window when they could just send them a text message or phone them? It was nuts.
He dropped his arms and pointed towards the front door then pointed at his chest. I didn't need to be a mind reader to know he wanted me to meet him out front.
Yes, he was definitely nuts.
I shook my head and pointed down at myself, hoping he got that I was in my pj's and not dressed for going outside. He needed to wait while I changed my clothes quickly. I held up my finger, signaling that I would be back in a sec, and moved away from the window. I hoped he understood what I wanted as easily as I had understood him.
I exchanged my shorts for a pair of soft, plain black drawstring pajama pants that were cool enough to have pockets. That was the one downfall to leggings, the lack of pockets. I didn't bother changing my top and, luckily enough, I hadn't taken off my bra yet. I found a plain black pullover hoodie hanging up in the closet, and slipped it on over my head and stuck my arms through their designated sleeves. I slipped my feet into a pair of black flip flops and grabbed my cell phone off of its place on top of my dresser. I stuffed that into the front pocket on my hoodie, and I was ready to go.
I looked around my room, wondering if there was anything else I should grab, and decided against it. Since I didn't know what was going on, I had everything I needed to meet Tyson out in the front yard late at night.
Sure, that sounded like an excellent idea considering what happened during our last late-night adventure.
I thought better of the flips flops when I reached the hallway and slipped them off my feet. I would be quieter on bare feet, and I didn't want to wake up Dash. He was an old man and went to bed super early every night and got up at the butt crack of dawn each morning. He needed his beauty rest.
Also, I wasn't sure what he'd have to say about Tyson throwing rocks at my window or me meeting him outside without knowing what was going on. I was fairly certain he'd insist on going with me, and then maybe telling Ty off for throwing rocks at my window when he should have been at home sleeping himself. Out of the three of us, Dash was the most mature one, to be sure.
&
nbsp; I crept down the hallway, then down the stairs without so much as making a peep, and I was uber proud of myself as I crept through the downstairs towards the front door. I dropped my flip flops to the ground in front of the door and slipped my feet into them before unlocking the door.
The door opened before I could twist the knob and I moved back, clearing the way. Tyson stuck his head inside and motioned with his hand for me to go out. I skirted passed him and turned back towards the door in time to see him pull the door closed and insert a key into the lock. He locked the dead bolt and turned towards me.
I opened my mouth to ask him what in the heck was going on and he lifted his hand and put a finger to his lips, shushing me before I could say anything.
Clearly, he didn't want to risk Dash overhearing us.
Oh boy.
Nothing good was going to come out of this, I just knew it. Otherwise he wouldn't be so concerned with hiding his visit.
He grabbed hold of my hand and took off running. Since he had ahold of my hand, I was forced to run with him or be dragged behind him, and that didn't sound like a whole lot of fun. Then again, neither was running in freaking flip flops.
We ran passed the cars, both mine and Dash's, and continued on running down the road.
"Where are we going?" I whispered breathlessly.
"Shhh," he hissed.
I shushed as I ran after him down the dirt road, though, I didn't think it mattered because I had asked quietly, and we were far enough away from the house now that Dash wouldn't over hear us. He was upstairs in his room sleeping, for goodness sakes! And none of the windows were open.
We ran for a few minutes before Tyson slowed down and veered off the side of the road where his black Audi was parked.
Why hadn't he just parked in front of the cottage like a normal person? What was going on?
"Can we talk now?" I whispered urgently. If he shushed me again there was a good chance I was going to kick him in the shin.
"Annabell called," he told me, and I immediately stopped walking. He didn't notice until my arm had stretched out as far as it could go, and he either had to let it go or stop moving away from me. He stopped moving.
"What are you doing?" He asked me.
Hadn't I been asking him what we were doing, and he hadn't answered me yet? Yes, yes, I had. I wanted to cross my arms over my chest, but since he held my hand tightly in his own, I couldn't, and doing so with the one arm would just look dumb, so I didn't.
"What are we doing?" I asked for the third time instead of answering his question. If he didn't tell me what we were doing, then I was going to turn right back around and head back to the house. I didn't want to leave Ty hanging, but I wasn't going off on an adventure blind either. Most especially because no one knew this Evil Annabell had resurfaced save for the two of us standing here. No freaking way was I going off with him without knowing what in the heck we were doing or what in the heck was going on.
"Like I said," he grumbled. "Annabell called."
My eyebrows rose high as I waited for him to continue. When he didn't, I asked, "And?" I mean, seriously? He couldn't expect me to just go on that!
He sighed dramatically, and his shoulders drooped. Right before my eyes he transformed from the loving, moody Tyson that was my friend into the person he'd been days ago, the drained and emotionally exhausted guy who looked incredibly defeated and miserable.
"She asked me for Damien's number and said something weird about him sleeping outside and how she missed him." he said, and my entire body stiffened. My breath escalated, and I ripped my hand out of his.
"What?" I hissed. "What the hell are you talking about?"
Oh my god, this was not good. This wasn't right.
How did she know he'd been sleeping outside?
"What's wrong with you?" Tyson asked as he approached me quickly with his hands held out in front of him, palms facing me in a nonthreatening manner.
I pointed my finger at the dirt road, and demanded, "Tell me exactly what she said. Word for word, Ty. I want to know, and I you need to tell me right now."
"You know something," he said. "What do you know that I don't?"
"I have to call Damien," I said as I ignored his outstretched hands and reached for the phone inside my hoodie pocket. I had the screen unlocked and was going to my text messages when Tyson took the phone out of my hands.
"Hey," I cried. "I was going to use that."
"I know," he said. "And I can't let you do that."
I slammed both my hands on my hips angrily and glared at him. "Why not?" I shouted at him.
He winced as he moved into me, crowding my space.
"Lower your damn voice," he hissed. "You're going to wake up Dash, and then we are going to be in deep shit."
I shook my head. Oh, no. The only person here who was going to be in deep shit with anybody was him, and that had absolutely nothing to do with me.
He stuffed my cell phone in the back pocket of his dark blue jeans and just like that it was gone.
"Give me my phone back," I hissed at him.
"No," he said.
"No?" I asked in an angry voice (but a quiet one because I didn't really want to wake Dash up, not until after I knew what was going on here). "What the heck do you mean, no? You can't just take my phone away from me and think you're going to keep it. That's ridiculous."
"You can think it's ridiculous all you want," he told me, "but it's what's happening here, and you're going to have to deal with it because I'm not giving it back to you right now."
I huffed angrily. This was not cool.
"What do you want from me?" I growled at him.
He threw his arms up in the air in exasperation and leaned towards me. This time there was nothing nonthreatening about his movements. He radiated hostility in waves that rolled off of him.
"I didn't want any of this," he snarled at me in an ugly voice. "It was you who insisted on this nonsense. I wanted to deal with everything on my own, but you said nooooo, we needed to do it together. So, I'm here, ready for us to take care of this, the two of us, and you are giving me nothing but grief for it. I took your phone because I'm worried that the minute my back is turned away from you you're going to be on it texting or phoning my Uncle, and then I'm going to be screwed because he will rage that I didn't immediately go to him with this so he could take control of the situation. But, Ariel, you have to understand. Uncle Quint will do something so bad to her that I am worried the Council will hurt him. They let it go the last time because of who grandpa was, but you don't get many chances with them, and now that we have you we need to be extra careful."
I thought about Rain saying he'd hunted rogue witches, and that his family had since forever, and that they'd broken off from the Council, and wondered what that meant for me since Rain and I shared blood and all. I knew enough to know that he didn't want anything to do with them and didn't want them to know about him, and figured I ought to be extra careful with the Council as well. And by extra careful I meant more careful than I already needed to be just by being a girl, because they were creepy and bad news for girls. Meeting them hadn't made me like them any more than I thought I was going to, even if Adrian did have his moments where he seemed like a decent human being. Then he went and ruined it by offering to give me an actual human being as a servant of some sort, and all of my good thoughts towards him had gone right down the shitter.
"Ariel," Ty snapped angrily and I blinked, coming out of my thoughts. "Are you even listening to me?"
I thought I had been, but maybe I had missed something important while thinking about the Council.
"What's the plan?" I asked.
"Just like that?" He asked incredulously. "You were pissed off a minute ago and demanding I give you your phone back so you could call Uncle Quint on my ass, and now you want to know what the plan is?"
Yeah, I couldn't blame him for sounding incredulous, were I him, I would have been the same way and asking the same damn question of me that
he did.
I thought about what I wanted before answering him.
"No," I said. "It's not just like that. First, I want my phone back." He opened his mouth to comment, but I held up my hand and he shut his mouth again. "You're going to give me my damn phone back and that's all there is to it. Then we are going to get into the car and you're going to tell me where we're going and what it is you expect us to do when we get there. And when you're done doing that, then I'm going to tell you whether or not we are going to call in for help or not, and you're going to listen to me, because neither of us can afford for this night to go badly."
He stared at me angrily before nodding his head sharply and turning back towards his car.
"Tyson," I said, and he turned back to me. "Quinton would never be so mad at you that he would turn his back on you or not come to your aid. He loves you more than he loves anyone else, and he'd never let anything bad happen to you. You have to know that."
"I know Uncle Quint loves me," he said quietly. "But you're wrong if you think he loves me more than he does you, dead wrong. So you better take good care of yourself tonight, because if anything bad happens to you on my watch then he will kill me, no matter if we share blood or not. And if we fuck this up, then there's a good chance he'll kill Annabell too."
I didn't think Quinton would really kill anybody, and thought Ty was being just a tad bit overdramatic here. I was also ignoring the fact he'd said Quinton loved me more than he did Ty because that was just ridiculous, and I didn't want to think about Quinton loving me. I knew it was a possibility, but I was working really hard at ignoring it because it kind of freaked me out. Quint was the type of person who went all in with everything he did. I didn't think he'd be any different with love, and it worried me because he was already intense as all get out. I didn't need him getting worse on me any time soon.
I followed Tyson to car and got in.
Once I had my seatbelt in place I couldn't help but ask, "Why do you care so much about what happens to Annabell? Do you still have feelings for her or something?"
